6.  The applicant was born in 1925 and lives in Bratislava.
7.  In 1938 the applicant's father acquired land in Levoča. After the Second World War, when the communist regime was installed in Czechoslovakia, the State availed itself of the land and put it at the disposal of a State-owned agricultural farm in Levoča without the owner's consent and without paying any compensation. The applicant's father remained the owner of the land in name (nuda proprietas).
8.  In 1983 the farm put the land, of which the applicant and her four sisters had become the owners in the meantime, at the disposal of the local organisation of the Slovak Union of Gardeners in Levoča for ten years. The owners were provided with no compensation.
9.  In accordance with the provisions of the Land Ownership Act 1991, the gardeners' right to use the land was extended by ten years in 1993.
10.  Levoča is nowadays a district town with approximately 15,000 inhabitants. According to the data in the land register, the applicant's land is situated outside the town's built-up area.
11.  On 23 June 1994 the applicant sued the users of the land for rent. She claimed that the tenants should pay her two Slovak korunas (SKK) per square metre of land a year for the period from 24 June 1991 to 31 December 1994.
12.  On 15 May 2003 the Spišská Nová Ves District Court obliged the tenants to pay the applicant a rent of SKK 0.1 per square metre of land for the period from 24 June 1991 to 31 December 1991, and SKK 0.3 for the period from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1994.
13.  As to the former period, the rent due was up to 1.5% of the administrative value of the land. Part of the applicant's land was classified as pasture and its value under the applicable regulation was SKK 0.5 per square metre. The remaining part of the plot was classified as arable land and its value was SKK 0.65 per square metre. Under the law in force the applicant was thus entitled to a total sum of SKK 10.1 as rent for the above period in 1991. However, since the gardeners had agreed to pay SKK 0.1 per square metre for the use of the land the court accepted that sum as the basis for determination of the rent. The rent due for that period was thus SKK 126.9.
14.  As to the second period, that is from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1994, valuation of land was governed by Regulation 465/1991. According to this, the arable part of the applicant's land had the value of SKK 0.5 per square metre and the remainder SKK 0.375. Compensation for temporary use of the land was to be agreed upon by the parties. Since no such agreement had been reached, the District Court considered it appropriate that the gardeners should pay SKK 0.3 per square metre per year. It had thereby also regard, as reference, to section 4(1) of Law no. 64/1997. The decision stated that the sum claimed by the applicant, namely SKK 2 per square metre, was too high, considering the location of the land and the gardeners' contribution to increasing its quality.
15.  The applicant appealed. She argued that the first-instance court had not correctly determined the surface area of her share in the plot used by the gardeners and that the rent due had not been determined correctly.
16.  On 30 October 2003 the Košice Regional Court granted the applicant's claim in part, in that it held that the gardeners were obliged to pay rent in respect of the overall land covered by the contract of 1983, that is also on its parts which, according to the gardeners, could not be used for gardening because of a steep slope. The surface area of the applicant's land for which rent was due was 2,804.4 square metres. As to the amount of rent due, the regional court upheld the first-instance judgment. Finally, the court of appeal drew the applicant's attention to the Constitutional Court's judgment PL ÚS 17/00 addressing conformity with the Constitution and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of certain provisions of Law no. 64/1997 (for further details concerning that judgment see Urbárska obec Trenčianske Biskupice v. Slovakia, no. 74258/01, §§ 67-79, ECHR 2007‑... (extracts)).
17.  On 16 December 2008 the applicant informed the Court that the gardeners had paid SKK 11,030 to her for the use of her land between 1991 and 2008. That sum was based on a yearly rental value of SKK 0.1 per square metre initially and later on SKK 0.3 per square metre.
18.  On 21 June 1999 the gardeners requested, under section 7(1) of Law no. 64/1997, that the ownership relationship in respect of their gardens be settled by the Levoča District Office in a land consolidation procedure under section 7(4) of that Act.
19.  On 22 February 2000 the district office made a formal announcement under section 18(1) of Law no. 64/1997 of the commencement of the land consolidation procedure pursuant to section 7(4) of that Act. On 8 March 2000 it published a register of the original ownership and a surveyor's plan concerning the current state of the land (“the preliminary inventory”). By a decision of 11 May 2000 the administrative authority approved the preliminary inventory.
20.  On 22 June 2001 the district office dismissed the applicant's objection to the preliminary inventory. On 5 November 2001, upon the applicant's appeal, the Prešov Regional Office quashed the contested decision due to procedural shortcomings.
21.  In the subsequent proceedings, on 21 February 2003, the applicant objected to the inventory, in particular to the area of land covered by it. The district office dismissed the objection on 21 March 2003. On 20 July 2006 the Regional Land Office in Prešov dismissed the applicant's appeal. On 22 June 2006 the applicant sought a judicial review of that decision.
22.  In a decision of 23 October 2006 the District Land Office in Poprad approved the preliminary inventory. In that context, the administrative value of the applicant's land was established at SKK 0.5 per square metre. Since the minimum amount for compensation was SKK 3, the administrative authority took the latter sum as a basis for assessment and increased the valuation of the applicant's land to SKK 6 on the ground of its location. The applicant appealed.
23.  On 8 February 2007 the regional land office stayed the proceedings pending the determination by a court of the applicant's action against the regional land office's decision of 20 July 2006.
24.  On 20 May 2008 the Prešov Regional Court quashed the last-mentioned decision. It granted the applicant's argument that the whole land put at the disposal of the association of gardeners should be taken into consideration in the consolidation procedure regardless of whether it was used for gardening purposes or not. The court further held that the administrative authorities had not established the relevant facts with sufficient certainty.
25.  On 7 November 2008 the regional land office quashed the district office's decision of 21 March 2003 dismissing the applicant's objection to the preliminary inventory.
26.  In the meantime, on 26 October 2006, the director of the district land office in a letter stated that, according to an inventory of the original state of the land, the value of the applicant's land was SKK 0.5 per square metre. Compensation under section 11 of Law no. 64/1997 was SKK 6 (the equivalent of approximately EUR 0.2) per square metre.
27.  The land consolidation procedure under Law no. 64/1997 is pending before the administrative authorities.
28.  On 2 April 2009, at the Government's request, the Forensic Engineering Institute in Žilina elaborated an opinion on the value of the applicant's land as of 20 March 2009. It noted that the applicant owned 2,804 square metres of land in the area concerned which, according to the zoning plan, was to be used exclusively for gardening purposes. The institute estimated the general value of the land at EUR 6.47 per square metre and its general rental value at EUR 0.448 per square metre per year.
29.  The applicant, with reference to several decisions on sale of real property approved by the Levoča municipal council, submitted that the current market value of her land was at least EUR 16.6 per square metre. She considered its annual rental value to be no less than EUR 0.664 per square metre.
30.  On 13 July 2001 the applicant sued the gardeners' association before the Poprad District Court. She claimed that the defendant's right to use her land should be cancelled. The applicant argued that the gardeners had disregarded the contract on use of the land of 1983. In particular, the surface of certain individual gardens exceeded the limit of 200 square metres and the surface of some of the gardeners' huts exceeded 16 square metres contrary to what the 1983 contract stipulated.
31.  On 11 September 2002 the District Court dismissed the action. It held that the use of the land was governed by the relevant provisions of the Land Ownership Act 1991 and of Law no. 64/1997. The applicant appealed. She argued that the gardeners were bound by the contract of 1983 and that they had failed to respect its provisions.
32.  On 8 March 2004 the Prešov Regional Court upheld the first-instance judgment as being in compliance with the applicable law. The court of appeal further pointed out that individual gardeners had become tenants of the land after the entry into force of Law no. 64/1997 on 26 March 1997. The defendant association could therefore no longer be considered as a user of the applicant's land.